President: Bagram a Taliban-making machine

KABUL (Pajhwok): President Hamid Karzai on Saturday characterised the Bagram prison in central Parwan province a Taliban-creating machine, where innocent Afghans were being held.

Addressing a press conference in Kabul, the president said: “As far as I know, the Bagram prison is a Taliban-creating machine; it’s a place where innocent Afghans are being held.”

The detainees were being provoked against their government and country, Karzai alleged, recalling that he had suggested in a 2008 meeting with prominent US senators Joe Biden and Bill Graham that the prison should be closed.

“Graham had then acknowledged they imprison a big number of Afghans even on the slightest of doubt, but I told him it’s what Russians were doing in Afghanistan. That resulted in jihad. He told me they are building big installations in our country then they need to detain more people.” Karzai added.

According to Karzai, he had told the American lawmaker that they would never be allowed to have their way in Afghanistan. But he quoted Graham as saying: “You are a single person and can’t stop us.”

His administrations did not allow outsiders to use the prison against the country, Karzai said, accusing the US of detaining Afghans to realise their own objectives and provoke them against their homeland.

The Bagram prison is located 40 km north of Kabul and its control was handed to Afghanistan in 2013.

In response to a question regarding released suspects rejoining the insurgency, Karzai said: “This is West’s propaganda.” Some of them might have returned to militancy because of the hatred they were taught in jail,” he believed.